[ibejoeb]

That's certainly not a universal preference. There are people and even entire cultures for whom being surreptitiously manipulative is disrespectful.

[runarberg]

Maybe so. I am personally intimately familiar with two cultures (Iceland and West Coast USA) and in both of these this preference is predominant.

But even so, that still would not make the behavior equal, as GP insinuated, it would merely reverse who’s worse.